{"id":10650,"date":"2013-07-18T02:14:44","date_gmt":"2013-07-18T09:14:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=10650"},"modified":"2013-07-18T02:14:44","modified_gmt":"2013-07-18T09:14:44","slug":"open-thread7182013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2013\/07\/18\/open-thread7182013\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread&ndash;7\/18\/2013"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">I\u2019m back from my errand, and the apartment is beginning to heat up.&#160; I\u2019m worn out from the heat, so I am limiting myself to this Open Thread.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Jig Zone Puzzle<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Today\u2019s took me 3:04 (average 4:37).&#160; To do it, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jigzone.com\/puzzles\/2013-07-18-CE2504A965A9\" target=\"_blank\">click here<\/a>.&#160; How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Short Takes<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.upworthy.com\/take-two-normal-people-add-money-to-just-one-of-them-and-watch-what-happens-next\" target=\"_blank\">Upworthy<\/a> (H\/T Pat from Care2 and the UK):<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" height=\"360\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/IuqGrz-Y_Lc?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"640\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">I&#8217;m not at all surprised that this generated hate mail from Republicans, Banksters and vulture capitalists. That is how they normally respond to the truth. It&#8217;s interesting that highly inequitable distribution of wealth actually contributes to the drive for Republicans to make it even more inequitable.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2013\/07\/17\/health\/health-plan-cost-for-new-yorkers-set-to-fall-50.html\" target=\"_blank\">NY Times<\/a>: <\/font>Individuals buying health insurance on their own will see their premiums tumble next year in New York State as changes under the <a href=\"http:\/\/topics.nytimes.com\/top\/news\/health\/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopics\/health_insurance_and_managed_care\/health_care_reform\/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier\" target=\"_blank\">federal health care law<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/well.blogs.nytimes.com\/2013\/07\/15\/health-insurance-within-reach\/\" target=\"_blank\">take effect<\/a>, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>State insurance regulators say they have approved rates for 2014 that are at least 50 percent lower on average than those currently available in New York. Beginning in October, individuals in New York City who now pay $1,000 a month or more for coverage will be able to shop for health insurance for as little as $308 monthly. With federal subsidies, the cost will be even lower. <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">What they won&#8217;t get is the RepubliCare Death Benefit or the free coat hanger for women.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rightwingwatch.org\/content\/kirkorian-warns-third-party-if-gop-doesn-t-block-immigration-reform\" target=\"_blank\">Right Wing Watch<\/a>: <\/font>Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies is warning House Republicans that a third party may emerge if they don\u2019t block immigration reform. While speaking to Sandy Rios of the American Family Association yesterday, Krikorian maintained that while it is right for Republicans to \u201cfear\u201d that \u201camnesty and increased immigration will import lots of Democratic voters,\u201d the more immediate problem for the GOP is a third party. <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Republicans, please pay attention to this wise man. A third party is clearly the path for Republicans to follow\u2026 in my wildest wet dream!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Cartoon<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"18Cartoon\" style=\"display: inline\" alt=\"18Cartoon\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/18Cartoon.jpg\" width=\"650\" height=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019m back from my errand, and the apartment is beginning to heat up.&#160; I\u2019m worn out from the heat, so I am limiting myself to this Open Thread. Jig Zone Puzzle: Today\u2019s took me 3:04 (average 4:37).&#160; To do it, click here.&#160; How did you do? Short Takes: From Upworthy (H\/T Pat from Care2 and <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2013\/07\/18\/open-thread7182013\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,3,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-open-thread","category-personal","category-politics","category-35-id","category-3-id","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10650\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}